Kevin was excited to buy a new iPhone 5 last week, but the iPhone was much less excited to go home with him. He left for a business trip and discovered that the phone wouldn’t come out of airplane mode. What was wrong? Had he only spent a few hours with the phone before it decided to rebel against Kevin and against the very AT&T network that was supposed to give it life? He sought help, but the carrier and the phone manufacturer each refuse to take responsibility for the problem. [More]

Reid’s story of iPad frustration isn’t worthy of an Executive Email Carpet Bomb, but it’s pertinent for those who expect to rip the device out of the box and start iPadding. He says the device requires you to hook it up to iTunes for activation. Because Reid couldn’t get to a computer with iTunes, he had to wait longer to get rolling. This is the kind of user-unfriendliness that has landed Apple in the Worst Company in America Sweet 16. [More]

Let’s be honest here. There is not very much overlap between the groups of “people who are quite tech-savvy” and “quilters.” (I can say that because I’m a quilter! Put down the rotary cutters!) That’s why reader T. is annoyed that the makers of popular quilt design software Electric Quilt only offer their users four “activations,” or installations on a particular operating system, and has their users scared to upgrade their Windows version or purchase a new computer.

After an iBook-death forced her to migrate to another computer, Lisa found that she couldn’t activate her legally-purchased copy of Macromedia StudioMX 2004. Adobe insisted that the software was too old to be reactivated. Too old? It’s software! It took several calls and emails before Lisa found an employee who was able to help, not by activating her old software, but by sending her a free new copy of Dreamweaver CS4.

Citi’s been burned enough by its cardholders’ profligate spending, apparently. Check out the message on this activation sticker on a new card. We like the inclusion of a sort of Yin-yang background, as if to remind us that debt and repayment are equal elements of the consumer credit world. A balance must be maintained! Just, you know, not so high a balance that you can’t make your monthly payments.(Thanks to Jerry!)

Remember JD? 32 hours of tech support from Apple and AT&T couldn’t coax his replacement iPhone into working with his prepaid SIM card. After we posted his story, representatives from both companies had a powwow and traced JD’s problem back to mismatched IMEI numbers. Now JD’s replacement iPhone works, and he has advice for anyone in a similar bind:

Received a call from an extremely helpful AT&T representative yesterday. She was informed of the situation by Apple, and worked with them to resolve it. Along with AT&T, I received a call from an Apple executive, who was also extremely helpful. Thanks to them both for getting to the bottom of this situation.

iPhone owners using prepaid SIM cards better take extra special care of their pocket trophies. According to Apple and AT&T, prepaid SIM cards are eternally wed without consent to one lucky iPhone, an important caveat reader JD discovered after spending 32 hours trying to activate his replacement iPhone. JD warns:

If you activated an iPhone with a new AT&T prepaid plan, you *must* keep using that iPhone. You *cannot* replace that iPhone with another iPhone. The only way to use a new iPhone with your prepaid account, is to *create a new account with a new phone number,* and have them move your balance over. Period. Apparently this is a “security feature” and the system was “designed that way,” specifically for prepaid iPhone plans.

The discouraging verdict from both Apple and AT&T should make potential iPhone users think twice before using a prepaid SIM card to skirt the confines of a two year contract. JD’s full story, after the jump.